Dr Ben Sweeting, University of Brighton
In this talk I explore the work of British cybernetician Gordon Pask through his participation in and influence on architectural projects during the 1960s and 1970s. Pask’s approach offers a paradigm for an intelligent environment that not only adapts to its use but also actively puts this use in question, requiring new actions from its users. This conversational back and forth is an example of the sort of circular interactivity with which the field of cybernetics is concerned more generally, and recentres the question of intelligence on the mutual understanding of participants. Connecting Pask’s work in architecture to the educational context of much of his other work, I ask what is being taught to and learnt by human participants in their experiences of machine learning, and how technologically interactive environments might be conceived so to elicit new questions and understanding.
Ben Sweeting teaches architecture and design at the University of Brighton. Ben’s research explores intersections between cybernetics, ethics, and architecture, including topics such as how design might contribute to ethics as well as vice versa, and historical intersections between architecture and cybernetics as Ben will speak to here. Ben serves in elected positions in the American Society for Cybernetics and the UK Cybernetics Society, and is an active member of the International Society for the Systems Sciences and the Systemic Design Association.
Find out more about Ben’s work at: https://research.brighton.ac.uk/en/persons/ben-sweeting
Leave a Reply